


After the Funeral

by notjustmom



Series: Ironstrange [7]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), incredible hulk
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 20:53:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17474807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustmom/pseuds/notjustmom
Summary: This is essentially a bit of the friendship between Banner and Stark, as Tony tells Stephen about their past, this piece begins after the Starks' memorial service. I've messed about with the ages, Tony in this verse is 17 when his parents die in the car crash, and Banner is in his 20s.





	After the Funeral

“Tony, sorry I’m late.”

“Bruce.” Tony’s eyes are hard, but as brightly intelligent as they always have been in the past. Bruce offers his hand, and is surprised as Tony hugs him tightly, then lets him go. “Sorry. Just couldn’t sit in there any more, listening to people who had no clue - even Peggy - and she knew him. She knew what he was like.”

“She. He - Tony, you know it was -”

“Right, a different time, he was different. Sure. Probably still an ass, even back then. I had to get it from somewhere, right?”

“Tony.”

“Wanna go back to the homestead, have a drink? I’m not sitting through another three hours of memories of a father I don’t recognize, no one is talking about my mom, all anyone wants to talk about is the ‘great Howard Stark’.” Bruce gives him a look and puts out his hand. Tony rolls his eyes at him, but drops a set of keys into his hand and allows Bruce to take him by the elbow and walk him over to his car.

 

“How old are you now, kid?” Bruce asks quietly as he pours them each a double.

“Just turned… hmmm… seventeen. Yeah… seventeen.”

“What do you want to do with your life?”

Tony tosses back half his drink and leans forward as he puts the cut crystal tumbler down carefully on a coaster. “Mom and her coasters, she had a fucking cabinet just for her coasters… what do I want to do? I do know what I don’t want to do, what I don’t want to be. I don’t want spend the next twenty, thirty years building new ways to blow up the world, I don’t want to be the heir apparent to all this. But I don’t have a choice, it’s who I am, Bruce.”

“Tony. You don’t have to be your dad.”

Tony snorts at him and picks up his drink again. “Right. And who should I be, then, Mr… no, Dr. what is it now, three PhDs, now, right? And what are you working on now? Wait, don’t tell me -”

“Working on my fourth and I’m working on something big. I haven’t told anyone. But last year I finally found Erskine’s notebooks.”

Tony shakes his head and finishes his drink, then stares at his friend for a long moment, before getting up to pour himself another drink. “Those were buried. For a reason. Bruce. Even my dad wouldn’t touch that and he loved Cap. At least he was capable of loving someone. Just not me. No. He loved you too. He did. Not only did I have to compete with Cap’n America himself, and he was dead for over twenty-five years before I was even born, then there was you. Sorry, didn’t plan to go there, today, or ever. Bruce. I know, if anyone could do it, redo the work, and actually get it right, it would be you, but the risks involved, the ethics. C’mon, Bruce, they had a reason back then, at least they thought it was a good enough reason, and maybe - maybe it was, maybe without Captain America we wouldn’t have won the war, but Erskine never shared the complete solution with anyone, the notebooks are only a path to what he came up with. You know, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Didn’t you learn anything from Howard?”

“Tony, I just want to see if I can do it.”

“Bruce. You know the history better than anyone - night after night, you couldn’t get enough of the stories about the ‘good ol’ days’, but you know what it cost him. If he hadn’t died in the car crash - the drinking alone -” Tony glares at the glass in his hand and puts it down. “I know I’m just a kid, Bruce, and I’ll always be a kid to you, but listen, just go get yourself some more degrees, or go teach or whatever - just don’t do it.”

“Yeah, okay, kid, okay. I hear you.”

Tony narrows his eyes at the one person he considers a friend, then shrugs. “Jarvis!”

“Sir?” The family butler walks into the room and waits for instructions.

“Dr. Banner will be staying for the next few days, please air out his room.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“You are staying, yeah?”

“Yeah, kid, I’ve got a few days.”

“Listen, Dad just had a theater built - I think so he could watch the old newsreels, those films he had of him talking about whatever, damn, he loved listening to himself talk. No, I will miss him, he always gave me something to fight against. Not sure what I’ll do without that… come on, we’ll have Jarvis put on something, eat some popcorn, drink ourselves halfway to oblivion?”

“Why not, kid, why not?”

 

“Tony.”

“The great Dr. Banner. What’s up?”

“I have a problem.”

“Bruce.”

“I, uhm - you know that thing we talked about a couple of months ago -”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. It doesn’t matter why, I thought I had it worked out - and -”

“You tested it on yourself.”

“Yeah, I really need your help.”

“Where are you?”

“In your dad’s old labs.”

“Damn it, Banner.”

“Tony - you’re the only person I trust - if anyone could help me, it’s you.”

“Yeah, I’m on my way.”

 

“You tried to help him?” Stephen asks Tony quietly, after Banner has said good night, and gone to sleep in the guest room.

“And like with you, I failed.”

“Tony, you were seventeen.”

“I could have been fifty, it wouldn’t have mattered, he messed with things he shouldn’t have, I know why, of course I know why, the science, he wanted to know if he could, and he was so close to getting it right. But it changed his DNA, there was nothing I could do, even now, there’s still nothing…” Tony sighs as Stephen looks into his eyes.

“You did everything you could for me, and I’m sure if there was any way you could have helped him, you would have found it.”

“Stephen. My dad was right. Just not quite good enough.”

“No. Look at me, Tony. Think about what you have done, who you are. No. I don’t mean ‘Iron Man.’ You found a way out of the cave, and you came home, and in spite of all my flaws, you agreed to marry me; when I came home, you were raising a baby on your own, you chose to take on raising Peter on your own. You weren’t even sure I would come home, but when I did, you forgave me, you took me back, and you never stopped loving me. You are a good person, Tony, and yeah, you managed to save Manhattan, too, did your father ever do any of that? You have always done the best you can to help those you love, and you have gone above and beyond to do the right thing. You are brilliant, and beautiful, and I love you, and Peter loves you -”

“He’s only five months old, Stephen.”

“I can tell.”

“How?” Stephen looks into Tony’s bright eyes sparkling at him, and he knows he needs to convince him, somehow. There have to be words that will finally convince him.

“Tony. I can tell by the way he listens to you when you talk and sing and hum to him. I know because of the way he looks at you. He knows you’re his dad and he already knows how much you love him.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Now, he’s going to be up in a few hours, and you need to sleep, hmm?”

“I love you, Doc,” Tony mumbles quietly as Stephen wraps his arms around him and holds him tightly as he drifts off to sleep.

“Yeah, Stark, love you, too.”


End file.
